Baltimore: Part Two

Not to be disappointed with our luck at the National Ballroom Dancing event, we walked over to Camden Yards to watch the Baltimore Orioles play. There weren't too many folks there so $15 dollars a ticket afforded us some pretty good seats, right down the 3rd base line about even with the left fielder.

Here's a video from the night:

I hadn't been to a baseball game in a number of years, and while I didn't really care who won, Baltimore or Seattle, it was still a lot of fun. One of the best parts about it was that Tiff had never been to a baseball game. Her reaction as we were getting tickets - after the game had already begun - to the swell of the crowd reacting to a play was classic, just like any 5 year old's with bulging eyes and true sense of awe.

It was with that same sense of awe that Tiff repeatedly asked what to do if the ball was hit directly at us. While I'm sure my early responses were something along the lines of both "Catch it" and "Get out of the way," they quickly turned to "If you get hit, we're sure to get on TV." It's not that I want to see my new wife beamed by a foul ball, it's that she seemed so worried about it for soooo long that I ran out of things to say.

That was Dave and Kim that we're with. They're way-cool. For some reason, here's another video just one out after the first one:

And here's the last video we took, one more out later - I do say a bad word here:

Yes, holy shit, I caught a foul ball.

Just to clarify, I didn't actually catch it. I saw it coming and admittedly, "Catch it" was never a thought so I ducked out of the way. Tiff, with literally no time to spare, did the same and the ball crashed into the seat next to hers. It literally would have knocked her out had she not moved at the last second. The ball bounced up a couple of empty rows, Dave throws his beer behind him and lunges over several rows, sprawled out across the seats, only to have a swarm of people do the same hing, but land on him instead of the seats. The ball, meanwhile, slowly rolled towards me and I picked it up.

With that in mind, perhaps my level of jubilation was a little bit extreme, but it's not going to stop from me saying that I caught a foul ball. It will stop me from talking though, as I woke up the next day unable to make any sound whatsoever.

Baltimore: Part One

This weekend I found myself in Baltimore. My way-cool friend, Dave, and his way-cool girlfriend, Kim, had a way-cool hotel room right at the Inner Harbor. Tiff and I went up for a night.

The hotel that we were staying in was hosting a National Ballroom Dancing competition. While Dave dismissed the event off-hand, the rest of us, myself included, were eager to see the dance-off. We waded through countless men with numbers on their back and women decked out in some funny looking dresses that connect to the wrist and enough make-up to make me want to become an Avon lady, to learn that it's by invite only.

While many of them were surprisingly young, as young as 12 or 13 maybe, it was clear that there were several big names in dancing. In fact, in a cramped elevator, a short Asian man with apparently limited English skills, turned to one of the passengers and asked, "Are you, John, Johnny, Jonathon? You dance this weekend?"

John, Johnny, Jonathon smiled with his slicked back hair and coolly said, "No, not this weekend. I'm just a spectator this weekend," just like I'm sure any big name celebrity would do. He then led his lady friend by the arm off the elevator, taking long graceful strides, all the while pointing his toe.

Baseball

I mentioned recently that I was "prepared to give up baseball." I said this as I was annoyed by basketball and all the hubbub around March Madness. Plus, while the steroids issue should probably put a dark cloud over all sports, right now it's just hovering over baseball. And on top of that, those guys get paid too much. They really do.

Anyways, with the start of the baseball season under way, I find myself checking the scores and reading all the stats in my late-night boredom every night, just as I have for the past few years... and I still get excited about it. A seven run 8th inning, wow!

I am frustrated though with the media coverage of the sports world. On Sunday, for instance, I watched the local news hoping to see a few clips of the soccer game from the night before, DC's season opener, a 2-0 loss. They spent nearly the whole newscast - not just the sports - talking about the baseball season opener. Now, Ben Olsen, one of the few guys whose name I know, has to have ankle surgery and I don't know what happened or how long he's out, or anything. The news won't tell me. Yahoo sports won't tell me. Wikipedia won't tell me. DC United's website won't even tell me!

I guess soccer's time hasn't quite come yet. While I will watch the soccer that I can, I'll be hoping for a few more seven run 8th innings too.